Isaac Rosenberg

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Isaac Rosenberg

Self-portrait of Isaac Rosenberg, 1915.
Born November 25, 1890
Bristol, England
Died April 1, 1918 (aged 27)
Somme, France
Occupation poet

Isaac Rosenberg (November 25, 1890 - April 1, 1918) was an English poet of the First World War who was considered to be one of the greatest of all British war poets. His "Poems from the Trenches" are recognised as some of the most outstanding written during the First World War.

Some sources spell his name Rosenburg.

Contents

[edit] Biography

Isaac Rosenberg was born in Bristol to Barnet and Annie Rosenberg and in 1897 moved to 47 Cable Street in a poor district of the East End of London, and one with a strong Jewish community. He attended St. Paul's School around the corner in Wellclose Square, until his family (of Russian descent) moved to Stepney in 1900, so he could experience Jewish schooling. He left school at the age of fourteen and became an apprentice engraver.

Suffering from chronic bronchitis, which he was afraid would only worsen, Rosenberg hoped to try and cure himself by emigrating to the warmer climate of South Africa, where his sister Mina lived.

He was interested in both poetry and visual art, and managed to find the finances to attend the Slade School. During his time at Slade School, Rosenberg notably studied alongside David Bomberg, Mark Gertler, Stanley Spencer, Paul Nash, Edward Wadsworth and Dora Carrington. He was taken up by Laurence Binyon and Edward Marsh, and began to write poetry seriously, but he suffered from ill-health.

He wrote the poem On Receiving News of the War in Cape Town, South Africa. While others wrote about war as patriotic sacrifice, Rosenberg was critical of the war from its onset. However, in order to find a "job" and be able to help support his mother, Rosenberg returned to England in October 1915 and enlisted in the army. He was assigned to the 12th Suffolk Folk Regiment, a 'bantam' battalion (men under 5'3"). After turning down an offer to become a lance corporal, Private Rosenberg was later transferred to the 11th Battalion, The King's Own Royal Lancaster Regiment (KORL). He was sent to the Somme on the Western Front in France where, having just finished night patrol, he was killed at dawn on April 1, 1918; there is a dispute as to whether his death occurred at the hands of a sniper or in close combat. In either case, Fampoux is the name of the town where he died. He was first buried in a mass grave, but in 1926, his remains were identified and reinterred, not in England, but at Bailleul Road East Cemetery [1] [2], Plot V, St. Laurent-Blangy, Pas de Calais, France.

In The Great War and Modern Memory, Paul Fussell's landmark study of the literature of the First World War, Fussell identifies Rosenberg's Break of Day in the Trenches as "the greatest poem of the war."

[edit] Works

His self-portraits hang in the National Portrait Gallery NPG 4129 and Tate Britain Self-Portrait 1911

A commemorative blue plaque to him hangs in The Whitechapel Library.

[edit] References

  • Geoff Akers - Beating for Light: The Story of Isaac Rosenberg (2006)
  • J M Woolf - Isaac Rosenberg, poet and painter (1975)
  • Word and Image VI. Isaac Rosenberg 1890-1918 (National Book League, 1975)
  • Jean Liddiard - Isaac Rosenberg; the Half Used Life (1975)
  • J. Cohen - Journey to the Trenches: The Life of Isaac Rosenberg 1890-1918 (1975)
  • Deborah Maccoby - God Made Blind: The Life and Work of Isaac Rosenberg (1999 Symposium Press; ISBN 1-900814-15-3)
  • Harold Finch - The Tower Hamlets Connection - a Biographical Guide (Stepney Books ISBN 0-902385-25-9)
  • Six Poets of the Great War: Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, Isaac Rosenberg, Richard Aldington, Edmund Blunden, Edward Thomas, Rupert Brooke and Many Others. (edited by Adrian Barlow) Cambridge University Press, 1995; ISBN 0-521-48569-X
  • Poets of the Great War: Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon, Isaac Rosenberg, Richard Aldington, Edmund Blunden, Edward Thomas, Rupert Brooke, and Many Others. (Naxos AudioBooks; ISBN 962-634-109-2)

[edit] External links